The Red Wings finished 21st out of 32 teams in The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s survey of front office confidence levels, so The Athletic’s Max Bultman discusses what some might deem “the shine coming off the ‘Yzerplan‘” by examining each category of Luszczyszyn’s rankings. Here’s one of them:
Free agency
2023 rating: B-
2024 rating: C
This was the lowest grade of any category from the fans — and from the public, which gave the front office a D-plus here. It’s not too hard to figure out why, as evidenced by the cap management section.
The [Justin] Holl deal is in a league of its own, as a moderate-sized contract for a player not even in the lineup most nights, and the concerns around [Andrew] Copp and [Ben] Chiarot persist despite Chiarot playing consistent top-four minutes and Copp playing a core matchup role. But perhaps a bigger issue is that Detroit has few clear wins to point to in free agency outside of one-year deals — on which its track record has been pretty strong (including [Shayne] Gostisbehere, [Patrick] Kane, Christian Fischer and Sprong last summer). In fairness, Detroit hasn’t given out a deal longer than five years to a UFA, but those medium-length, three-to-five-year deals still linger.
The one contract of that length that probably gets underrated is [J.T.] Compher, who signed for five years at $5.1 million last summer. Compher was coming off a career-high 52 points the year prior with the Avalanche, and many questioned whether he would be able to sustain that production in Detroit. But he largely did, scoring 48 points with a career-high 19 goals. His tough-to-sustain 17.6 percent shooting percentage still keeps those questions alive, but when you consider that Chandler Stephenson signed for seven years at $6.25 million, Compher at four more years for $5.1 million looks pretty solid.
Building through free agency can be a dicey bet for any team, as players have the most leverage and are typically toward the back half of their primes. But the Red Wings haven’t had enough free agency wins — especially outside of one-year deals — and that makes this an area of real concern.
Continued; as I stated when the “front office confidence survey” came out, I understand that fans have gotten really impatient with the lengthy status of the Red Wings’ rebuild, and I effing get it as a Wings partisan myself..
But I also believe that the Red Wings’ front office (from Yzerman on out) consists of human beings who make mistakes, and it’s my belief that the Red Wings may be in the middle of a 10-12 year rebuild as opposed to an 8-10 year rebuild.
As far as this category is concerned, regrettably, most teams that attempt to rebuild their roster through free agency find that it is at best a “mixed bag,” and usually a losing proposition.
There’s no doubt that the Red Wings over-reached two summers ago, when they signed Copp, Kubalik, Chiarot and so on, but that was a sign of front-office impatience, too…
And Detroit isn’t necessarily a “destination” for free agents yet, save perhaps the cachet that’s still being felt from the Kane signing, so I’m not surprised that the Wings have struggled with money-and-term deals, while not being able to land the Marchessaults or Stamkoses of the free agency world.
I’m not letting the Wings off the hook here–there have been some bad fits, and that’s obvious, and unacceptable at the same time–but it’s hard to suggest that the Wings’ rebuild was going to be anything less than bumpy because it relied on free agent availability and/or attraction to Detroit as a destination in order to fill holes in the roster.
That’s why there are so many Michigan guys (some good and some not so good) who’ve signed via free agency thus far, and that’s one of the reasons it’s been so damn hard to do anything more than tread water in free agency…
As the Red Wings did this summer because two key veterans (see: David Perron and Shayne Gostisbehere) thought that the Stanley Cup grass was greener on the other side of the fence, and some players (see: Daniel Sprong) just didn’t fit into the roster picture any more.
At this point in the rebuild, winning some players’ signatures and losing others is an unfortunate reality of being a rebuilding team, and sometimes making some more conservative, future-minded decisions in free agency takes its toll on the here-and-now veterans in order to make contractual room and roster space for tomorrow’s stars.
Long story long, I understand that fans are getting twitchy some five years into the rebuild. I am, too. I want to see this team make the playoffs just as much as you do. But the team can’t and won’t win by building through free agency alone, and it takes time and effort to build the “free agency destination” cachet.
It’s hard to be “in for the long haul” while understanding that the front office is human and makes mistakes from time to time, and while it’s essentially “the fan’s job” to keep their team honest about those mistakes…
It’s also the fans’ privilege to only be along for the ride as their teams are built and rebuilt, because we don’t get much say in what “our teams'” front offices do or do not do in terms of making trades, free agent signings, and draft picks.
The marriage of fan and team can be bumpy at times, and it’s not always wedded bliss, but if you stick with a relationship, and put work into it, the long-term result is usually worth the arguing and fighting parts of the relationship.
We appear to be at an “arguing and fighting” part right now. Keep the faith. Better times are coming, even though it turns out that Steve Yzerman is a human being of a GM, and not some god-like figure. There’s still an “Yzerplan,” and it will prevail, though it’s not the quick fix some imagined it would be.
